DAFFODILS.

WANDERED lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and

hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company.

I gazed, and gazed, but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure filis,
And dances with the daffodils.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

THE WOOD GIANT. ROM Alton Bay to Sandwich Dome,

From Mad to Saco River,

For patriarchs of the primal wood

We sought with vain endeavor.

And then we said: "The giants old
Are lost beyond retrieval.
This pigmy growth the axe has spared
Is not the wood primeval.

"Look where we will o'er vale and hill, How idle are our searches,

Who thinks to see its full-grown tree Must live a century older."

At last to us a woodland path, To open sunset leading, Revealed the Anakim of pines

Our wildest wish exceeding.

Alone, the level sun before,

Below, the lake's green islands, Beyond, in misty distance dim, The rugged Northern Highlands.

Dark Titan on his Sunset Hill

Of time and change defiant! How dwarfed the common woodland seemed, Before the old time giant.

What marvel that in simpler days

Of the world's early childhood,

Men crowned with garlands, gifts and praise, Such monarchs of the wild-wood?

That Tyrian maids with flower and song
Danced through the hill-grove's spaces,
And hoary-bearded Druids found
In woods their holy places?

With somewhat of that Pagan awe
With Christian reverence blending,
We saw our pine tree's mighty arms
Above our heads extending.

We heard his needle's mystic rune,
Now rising and now dying,
As erst Dodona's priestess heard
The oak leaves prophesying.

Was it the half unconscious moan

Of one apart and mateless,
The weariness of unshared power,
The loneliness of greatness?

Oh, dawns and sunsets, lend to him Your beauty and your wonder; Blithe sparrow, sing thy Summer song His solemn shadow under!

Oh wind of Summer, waking

For hills like these, the sound of seas On far off beaches breaking!

And let the eagle and the crow

Rest on his still green branches, When winds shake down his Winter snow In silver avalanches.

THE NIGHTINGALE.

IS sweet to hear the merry lark, That bids a blithe good-morrow, But sweeter to hark, in the twinkling dark,

To the soothing song of sorrow. Oh! nightingale, what does she ail? And is she sad or jolly?

For ne'er on earth was sound of mirth So like to melancholy.

The merry lark, he soars on high,

No worldly thought o'ertakes him,
He sings aloud to the calm blue sky,
And the daylight that awakes him.
As sweet a lay, as loud, as gay,

The nightingale is trilling,
With feeling bliss, no less than his,

Her little heart is thrilling.

Yet, ever and anon, a sigh

Peers through her lavish mirth; For the lark's bold song is of the sky, And hers is of the earth.

By night and day she tunes her lay,
To drive away all sorrow;
For bliss, alas! to-night must pass,
And woe may come to-morrow!
HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

THE EARLY BLUE-BIRD.

BLUEBIRD! on yon leafless tree,

Dost carol thus to me:

"Spring is coming! Spring is here!"
Says't thou so, my birdie dear?
What is that, in misty shroud,
Stealing from the darkened cloud?
Lo! the snow-flakes' gathering mound
Settles o'er the whitened ground,
Yet thou singest, blithe and clear:
"Spring is coming! Spring is here!"
Strik'st thou not too bold a strain?
Winds are piping o'er the plain;
Clouds are sweeping o'er the sky
With a black and threatening eye;
Urchins, by the frozen rill,
Wrap their mantles closer still;
Yon poor man, with doublet old,
Doth he shiver at the cold?
Hath he not a nose of blue?
Tell me, birdling, tell me true.
Spring's a maid of mirth and glee,
Rosy wreaths and revelry;

Hast thou wooed some winged love
To a nest in verdant grove?
Sung to her of green wood bower,
Sunny skies that never lower?
Lured her with thy promise fair
Of a lot that knows no care?
Pr'ythee, bird, in coat of blue,
Though a lover, tell her true.
Ask her if, when storms are long,
She can sing a cheerful song?
When the rude winds rock the tree,
If she'll closer cling to thee?
Then the blasts that sweep the sky,
Unappalled shall pass thee by;
Though thy curtained chamber show
Siftings of untimely snow,

The bright wave is tossing its foam on high,
And the summer breezes go lightly by;
The air and the water dance, glitter, and play,
And why should not I be as merry as they?

The linnet is singing the wild wood through; The fawn's bounding footstep skims over the dew;

The butterfly flits round the flowering tree, And the cowslip and bluebell are bent by the bee;

All the creatures that dwell in the forest are gay,

And why should not I be as merry as they? MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

In the leafy trees so broad and tall,
Like a green and beautiful palace-hall,
With its airy chambers, light and boon,
That open to sun and stars and moon,
That open unto the bright blue sky,
And the frolicsome winds as they wander by.

They have left their nest in the forest bough;
Those homes of delight they need not now;
And the young and the old, they wander out,
And traverse the green world round about;
And hark! at the top of this leafy hall,
How one to the other they lovingly call:
"Come up, come up," they seem to say,
"Where the topmost twigs in the breezes
sway."

That gladdens some fairy region old!
On mountain tops, on the billowy sea,
On the leafy stems of the forest tree,
How pleasant the life of a bird must be.
MARY HOWITT.

TO A NIGHTINGALE. WEET bird! that sing'st away the earth

ly hours,

Of winter's past or coming void of care, Well pleased with delights which present are,

Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers;

To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare, And what dear gifts on thee He did not

spare,